Pork is a staple in Romanian traditional
\ncuisine. So much so that slaughtering pigs is a tradition with a whole array of
\nrituals attached to it, as you may know from countless other shows. Even though
\nthe weather in winter in Romania is quite cold, the large quantity of meat
\nresulting has to be preserved by means other than cold. The most common
\nmethods, as in many other parts of the world, are salting, cooking or smoking,
\nor a combination of those. <\/p>\n
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One of the most common means of preserving
\nvarious pork products was to put them in lard. Lard is traditionally obtained
\nby melting small pieces of fatback in a large cast iron pot over an open fire.
\nThe resulting lard is placed in jars, and in that people preserve all manner of
\npork products, from simple cuts of meat to sausages. Sometimes raw sausages are
\nfried in the lard they get preserved in. <\/p>\n
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These customs are
\nquite old, as old as the villages and cities they are kept. Many fortified
\ncities in Transylvania, where pork is eaten more, had actual towers with a
\nspecial room for preserving cuts of meat. In winter, men would cut blocks of
\nice and wrap them in straw to make cold storage. These towers were referred to
\nas Fatback Towers. In order to prevent the ice melting, it was a general rule
\nthat people would only open the cold rooms once a week, Sunday after mass. <\/p>\n
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Salted and smoked
\nfatback is still a staple of winter meals, generally eaten with bread and red
\nonion dipped in salt. Enjoy!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The most common methods to preserve pork, which is a staple in Romanian cuisine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":174045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45767],"tags":[45927,43064],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-174044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-cooking-show","tag-pork","tag-romanian-cuisine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n